


Like A Bat Out Of Hell

by FabulaRasa



Category: DCU
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-02
Updated: 2013-10-02
Packaged: 2017-12-28 05:35:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 20,858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/988316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FabulaRasa/pseuds/FabulaRasa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How do you begin the conversation when you think Bruce Wayne is drinking a little too much? Clark discovers that poking at the dark corners of Bruce's mind is rarely a good idea. For that matter, poking at Alfred is an even worse idea. </p><p>For <a href="http://runkirya.tumblr.com/">Runkirya</a>, who wanted it soon, and for <a href="http://itispossibleihaveissues.tumblr.com/">Mikimoo</a>, who was patient with me.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Clark slid the study doors shut behind him, muting the noise of the party on the first floor. He watched Bruce by the drinks cart, pouring himself another scotch. He waited until Bruce turned. "Some mission today," he said. Bruce grunted.

"So I was just curious," he continued, "if you waited to get tanked until after it was over, or did you decide to get a head start?"

Bruce took a leisurely sip of his drink. "Well," he said. "Of the long list of things that are none of your business, you picked one right from the top."

"It's my business when I'm the one running the mission and you're the one—"

"If you dare to imply that I was in any way impaired today, or jeopardizing the safety of my team or the success of the mission, I will throw you through those windows and onto my lawn, which you will then get the hell off of."

"Really. Give that one a try, let's see where it gets you. If you can walk straight, that is."

Bruce snorted. "Go find someone else to pester, Kent. It's none of your business how much I drink or when, but for your information, I'm not drunk. Not even close."

Clark crossed his arms. "That's your fourth scotch in thirty-five minutes. So here are the possibilities: a, you're really not drunk, which means your daily consumption must truly be staggering, b, you're drunk and masking, or c, you're so used to being drunk you don't even recognize what drunk feels like any more."

"Mm. Well, that's a puzzler, Clark, but I think I'm going to go with d, shut your goddamn mouth and get the hell out of my house."

"Jesus. You are drunk off your unbelievable ass."

Bruce's laugh was wide and open-mouthed. Party Bruce's laugh, not actual Bruce's. He sank into a leather chair. "I take it back, you're right. I must be drunk to the point of hallucination if Clark Kent is complimenting my ass."

"You know, I have to tell you, of all the Bruce Waynes I know, flirty bisexual Bruce is my least favorite."

The laugh was wiped from Bruce's face. "Well isn't that interesting, because homophobic self-righteous Clark happens to be my least favorite, you little shit."

"That wasn't what I meant. I didn't mean—I just meant, it irritates me when you act like that, when you—"

"As a point of further information, my bisexuality is not an act, you fucking asshole."

"I know that, I meant—Jesus, will you let me speak. You do this all the time, if we're at a party together, some benefit or press event or ridiculous something, and Party Bruce gets all flirty because you know you can and no one will think anything of it, and it's this fun little game for you, and you do it because you know it affects me, and you enjoy winding me up. That's what pisses me off."

Bruce's lips were on the rim of his glass, but he wasn't drinking. He was just staring over the glass at Clark. "Curiouser and curiouser," he said, lips pressed against the glass. "That I did not know."

"You didn't know it pissed me off?"

"I didn't know it affected you."

"Oh." He fought the flush that threatened to rise from his neck. "Well it does."

Bruce set the drink down. He was brisk again, all business. "Sorry. Won't happen again."

"Bruce."

"Hm."

"The drinking. It's out of hand. I'm saying it to you because no one else will, because they're all too scared of you."

"You might want to think," Bruce said with narrowed eyes, "about why that is."

"I'm about as scared of you as you are of me."

"Ah," Bruce said, as though he had made a fascinating and complicated point. Clark chewed his lip.

"So in college," he said. "I dated this woman who worked with—addicts, mainly. Drug addicts, she was an addiction counselor. She said some interesting things, but one of the things I do remember—"

"I'm looking forward to this."

"One of the things I _do_ remember, is that it's always a mistake to ask someone to quit for your sake. They're supposed to want it for themselves, is the idea. You get clean, or sober, or whatever, because it's something you want, not what someone else is forcing you into."

"How profound. I'm stunned the two of you aren't married." Bruce canted himself sideways in the chair and draped his legs over the arm. The pose made him look like Dick.

"Well, we're not."

"She broke up with you because she had run out of pointless aphorisms?"

"Why do you assume she would have broken up with me?"

"Because Clark Kent would never break up with anybody. Clark Kent would never disappoint anybody. You'd end up married to someone you didn't love just to avoid an awkward conversation."

"I did break up with her, in fact."

"Why?" He was back to idly lipping the glass.

"Because. . . because we weren't compatible, why does it matter? I don't even remember."

"Liar."

"The point is, I mentioned what she used to say because I'm about to break that rule, because I want to—"

"Yes, I see where this is going. First things first. Why did you break up with her, with Suzy Social Worker?"

"Corinne."

"Even better. Why did you break up with her?"

"She was sleeping with someone else."

"How did you find out?" 

"What on earth does that matter?"

Bruce's finger circled the rim of the glass. "It matters."

"I. . . found her in bed, with my best friend." Part of him expected Bruce to laugh again, something short and sardonic, or at least smirk at him. There was nothing.

"What was your best friend's name?"

"Why on earth would you—"

"You're about to ask me a big question, I get a couple more small ones. Name?"

"Amber." 

Bruce's eyebrows did rise at that one. "Well, that's a slightly different story from 'I broke up with her,' isn't it?"

"Technically—"

"Yes yes. It just goes to underscore my larger point, which is that you have a relationship with the truth that is . . . complicated, at times."

"I swear to God if you call me a liar just one more time I will deck you."

He got a full head cock at that one. "Can you?"

"Can I what?"

"Deck me. I'm asking, because in thinking about it I'm not sure I've ever seen it happen. Seen you punch someone just hard enough to make your point, but well short of hard enough to launch them into the photosphere of the sun. Think you can pull your punch enough to deck me?"

"I don't know, why don't we see." That got him a soft laugh. "Bruce. Let me ask it."

"No."

"I don't understand why you're being this way. If you're this resistant to quitting, doesn't it just make it clear to you that you have a problem? How can you continue to—okay, forget that, that's not what I mean to say. I mean to say, even if you disagree with me, even if you think you don't have a problem, and it's all in my head, and I'm overreacting and being irrational and anything else you want to think—even if that were true, why not just. . . " He put his head in his hands. This was like battering against a brick wall. For the first time the room was quiet. He felt Bruce watching him.

After a minute he got up and stood in front of Bruce's chair. He was still tilted sideways in it. The pocket door slid open, and Dick stuck his head in. "Hey. . . Bruce, everything okay? People are starting to wonder where you are. Deflecting is my superpower, but even I could use some back-up."

"Right there," Bruce said, his eyes still on Clark.

"All. . . right then." The door slid shut. Clark knelt in front of the chair. Bruce still considered him. 

"Because I'm the one asking it," he said. "I know that's not what I'm supposed to say, I know that's all wrong. But I don't care. Because I'm asking it. For me. Stop because I am asking a thing." 

"Don't," Bruce whispered.

"Screw that, I'm doing it. Bruce, when do I ever ask anything of you? When have I? But this, I'm asking. This one thing."

Bruce was running his thumb on his scotch. "You ask things of me all the time."

"Like what? What do I ask?"

"Things." 

"Being drunk turns you into an eleven-year-old, you know that." He put his hand on Bruce's knee. "Please. Bruce."

"You wouldn't have liked me at eleven. I was quite a bit fucked-up, as a kid."

"You don't say."

"You think you know me." Bruce's voice was angry.

"I don't. I think I know the parts you let me know. You let me see what you want me to see. Some of the rest I can guess, but I'll never know all of it. I know that. Bruce. I'm asking this."

"My parents' death was not the worst thing that ever happened to me, as a matter of fact. It was only the first. And maybe the worst because it caused so many of the others. But maybe it didn't. I'm tired of everyone thinking I am who I am because of what happened when I was eight."

"Okay. What was the worst thing that ever happened to you?"

For a moment something shifted in Bruce's eyes, something dark and nameless and watchful, something Clark would have missed if he hadn't been able to perceive minute contractions of iris, the tiniest of internal flinches. And then it was gone, in a half-second's breath. "Meeting you," he said, lifting the scotch to his lips again with a twist to that mouth, and Clark sighed. He didn't drop Bruce's gaze though.

"I'm asking it," he said steadily. 

"Lesbian Corinne may have been onto something. I'm not going to stop drinking—something I enjoy, something which is harmless and utterly meaningless, something which is, let us return to an earlier point, absolutely _none_ of your business—just because you ask me to. I'm not making a major life change because of you."

Clark put his other hand on Bruce's knee. He was still kneeling there, and he wasn't going to get up. The angrier Bruce's voice got, the quieter he kept his own. "If it's so meaningless, then explain to me why quitting would be such a major life change." He waited for that to land, and saw the shift in Bruce's eyes, saw the moment of _gotcha_ , the moment when he had him backed in a corner and no way out. Here was where Bruce would show his claws.

"I watch you," Clark said softly. "I've been watching for some time. I know. Bruce, I know. I know how much you drink, I know why you drink, I know when you drink. And I'm telling you, it needs to stop."

"I know," said Bruce, just as steady.

"Then let me help you."

"You can't."

"I can. Yes, I can. We can go somewhere, somewhere away from here. Just for the first bit, just to get through the rough part. To the Fortress, if you want. No one has to know, no one will ever know."

"Third lie. You've already talked to Dick."

"Because he came to me. Bruce. Will you let me? Will you?"

Bruce's eyes were impossibly sad, impossibly far away. Things stirred in them, sheets of color and murk that slid away, out of his reach, saying things he would never understand. He felt the moment of Bruce's bonelessness. There was a small nod, just the slightest of motions, and Clark's chest tightened with joy. Like Jacob wrestling with the angel, and he would not let go. Had not let go. He put his hand on the back of Bruce's neck. "Thank you," he whispered. 

"This won't be easy."

"I know it. I know. But there isn't any price I wouldn't pay, anything I wouldn't do."

"Isn't there," Bruce said. There was something menacing in it, something dangerous and awake. 

Clark's hand was still on the back of his neck, and something softened in Bruce's eyes. He pulled Bruce into him. 

Bruce did not resist him. Bruce's head—sweet, sweet—was resting on his shoulder. It was a matter of nothing to turn his own head, to graze his late-stubbled jaw against Bruce's. These were still the moments when it could not be happening. And then his mouth met Bruce's, kissed him deep and fierce, and the moment of not-happening had surrendered to the finally-happening, and God, the taste of him. He kept his hand firm on the back of Bruce's neck.

"Stop, what the—" said Bruce, with a grimace, and shoved him off. "Did you think I—for God's sake." 

And he was up, pushing up from the chair, practically stepping over Clark. "You seriously thought that I was looking for you to make out with me. Clark, of all the—hang on." He reached for the cut-glass decanter of water on the tray and poured some into a crystal tumbler. He drank it quickly down, wiped at his mouth. Clark's mouth still tasted of the scotch on Bruce's tongue. "Dear God," Bruce said, "is that what you thought, all this time?"

"I'm sorry," Clark said. His tongue felt numb, except for the scotch. The thing to do was to get up off his knees, so he did. The other thing was to meet Bruce's eyes, which he could not. "Sorry, I didn't—"

"It's all right, forget it." Bruce was taking more of the water. He wiped again at his mouth, and Clark knew it wasn't the water he was trying to wipe away. "I over-reacted. It's fine, obviously, it's not like I mind. You want some water?"

"No—no, I'm fine. Listen, we can—talk more about this, about the quitting. I. . . appreciate that you. . . thinking about taking this first step is the important thing." Getting feeling back in his extremities, or for that matter in the center of his body, was another important thing, but clearly that wasn't going to happen anytime soon. Bruce was still swigging water. In another minute he was going to gargle and spit. 

"We'll talk more tomorrow," Clark said. "Think about what I said. About the quitting. I think it will—I'll call you in the morning, we can talk then." Somehow he got himself out the door, slid it home behind him. 

Dick was leaning against the far wall, in the darkened hallway. His eyes were expectant. The doors in this house were thick and solid, and they had been talking softly anyway. He didn't know what to say to Dick. He couldn't keep his eyes from skittering away. If he could just get to his car.

"That well, huh," said Dick. 

Clark shrugged and started the long walk down the maze of corridors that led to the garage. The party was still going full swing downstairs, independent of Bruce's presence or absence. In a few minutes Bruce might go back downstairs to rejoin them, or he wouldn't. Some guests were leaving, some were still arriving. Their cars were parked all along the long drive, down the avenue of trees. He could hear the crunch of high heels in the gravel, the soft giggles of the women in strapless, backless gowns. A handful or two, mildly drunk, picked their desultory, lurching way back to their cars. If he concentrated he would be able to hear what they were saying. 

His own car was in one of the bays of the garage, as a privileged family friend. Dick walked with him, in silence. Dick was courteous that way. Bred to be courteous. Bruce and Alfred had done a good job. "You want to talk about it?" Dick said, as Clark opened his car door. He hated the way his car looked in this garage, small and dingy and out of place. The gleaming Bentley in the next bay was laughing at him. 

"Emphatically not."

Dick's lopsided smile was all Bruce. "Yeah, I've had those conversations. Still. I'm glad you tried. Thank you for trying, is what I meant to say. Not that you did it for me. I just mean, I appreciate it."

"Yep."

"Think you got anywhere?"

"Nope."

Dick nodded. "Well. You had to have known going into it—"

"I didn't, is the thing. I honestly thought that if I asked him a thing, point-blank, he would do it. I really thought that."

"Yeah, I've had those conversations too. Well. If he was going to listen to anyone, it would have been you." Dick was studying the slick concrete floor. Not a stain on it, not so much as an oil leak. Probably there would be now, from his car. "It won't ever make a difference," Dick said, after a pause. "To him, out in the field, I mean. That will never happen."

"I know it."

"I just don't want you to think—listen," he said. "It could be that this is just the one thing he can't do, in a lifetime of amazing, unbelievable things no one ever thought could be done. Just this one thing."

"I know that too."

"No one else ever needs to know." A boy's unflinching loyalty, though Dick was a man grown. But still the boy whose life had been put back together by Bruce Wayne, and who would always, no matter the cost, defend Bruce. Even if he knew he was wrong, even if the whole world stood on one side of the line, and Bruce stood on the other, Dick would stand with Bruce. Well. For that matter, so would he. 

"Don't judge him for this," Dick said fiercely. "Or betray him. Don't you dare."

"You don't know him very well," said the voice at the door, "if you think he would do either." Bruce was leaning in the doorway, watching them. The tumbler of scotch was still in his fingers, but absently, like he had forgotten it was there. "Dick, can you give us a minute?"

"Sure." He moved twice as silently as Bruce, a tautly-muscled cat with eyes that flicked Clark's direction. Bruce watched him go. 

"I need to get home," Clark said. 

"I won't keep you. I just wanted to say that what I did—it was cruel. It was transcendently cruel. I'm sorry."

"You don't have anything to apologize for. Let's just talk in the morning, all right?"

"We won't," Bruce said shrewdly. He took a contemplative sip of the scotch. "I also came out to say this. It's not just the one thing I can't do." He set the tumbler down on a small utility table by the door. He looked at it resting there. "In fact, I just did it."

"You don't need to—"

"Sometimes the victims of transcendent cruelty are capable of transcendent cruelty themselves, because they know so well how to do it, have seen it done so well. It would probably be useful for you to remember that."

"And here you were making fun of Corinne for her platitudes."

"I am not mocking your lesbian girlfriend, I promise. My point is, you're right. I knew you were right. It made me angry that you were right. So I punished you for it. Did it hurt?" Bruce was looking at him curiously.

"You know it did."

"It was easy enough. I just did the thing that would have devastated me the most, had our situations been reversed."

"Well done."

"Will you forgive me?"

"Probably. Bruce. What did you mean, about transcendent cruelty? What cruelty did you—what are you talking about?"

Bruce's eyes were wary. "That's a fireside tale for another night, I think. Listen. Did you mean it, about going to the Fortress?"

"Of course. Anywhere you like." 

He was running a finger down the Bentley's sleek side. "You'll still go with me?"

"Of course."

Bruce tapped the driver's mirror, his mouth thoughtful. "I did want you to kiss me."

 _Motherfucker_ , Clark thought viciously. "Not as much as you wanted to hurt me, evidently." 

"I suppose that's accurate." 

He wrenched open his car door. "We'll continue this conversation when you're not drunk off your ass. It's hard enough conversing with you sober, this I can't handle. Just—go back inside. I'm done tonight, all right? Tomorrow, I'll be good. I promise, I'll be back for another round of shit on Clark, I'll take it all you want, I'm good for it like I always am. But tonight? Tonight I am so fucking done." 

Bruce shut his eyes. He said nothing. Clark got in the car and pulled the door shut. He backed out of the bay, looking carefully to make sure he didn't mow down any straggling society types staggering around the Manor's east end. He shifted to first, and he saw Bruce standing in the lighted bay of the garage, hands in his pockets. While he idled he saw Bruce turn and go back through the door that led to the house. He left his scotch sitting beside the door.

* * *

Clark slept so soundly he almost didn't hear the phone. He had no idea how long it had been ringing, and he was still sleep-heavy when he mumbled "yeah" into the phone. At first he had thought it was his League communicator, which had fallen under the nightstand, and then he had hit his head trying to retrieve it, and sure, superpowered invulnerability, but banging your head in the middle of the night still felt like hell no matter which planet you came from.

"Clark. You awake?" Dick's voice was terse.

"Am now. What's wrong?" His watch said 3:30 in the morning. Too late to get back to sleep, too early for a good night's sleep. 

"What the hell happened last night?"

He was fully awake now. He sat up. "Nothing happened. We talked, it went badly, I went home. Why?"

"Well, I didn't go home last night. It was late, plus I figured I could hang out with Tim and Damian this morning, so I stayed over. But he's just. . . he didn't go to bed."

"Let me see if I understand. You called me because Bruce is brooding?"

"Yeah, well, this time he's armed."

"Say that again?"

Dick's sigh gusted the receiver. "After you left, after the house was clear, he lined up every bottle of liquor in the house out on the back terrace. I mean every bottle. Every liquor cabinet in the house, and several I didn't even know about. Not to mention the wine cellar — I think Alfred managed to hurl his body across the '74 St. Emilions, but other than that, it's a bloodbath."

"What are you—Dick, what are you talking about?"

"He has a crossbow. He must have dug it up from the armory, and personally I'm blaming Ollie. He's out there, and he's got all the bottles lined up on the stone wall, and he's just been shooting them, one after another. You wouldn't believe the smell."

"Is everyone in the house?" 

"Well, Dami's asleep, which thank God for, because Titus is out there with him, licking up just about every bottle Bruce manages to shatter. Look, I'm no vet, and I have no idea about a Great Dane's metabolic capacity for alcohol, but I'm not going to be the one to tell Damian his dog is drunk. Or, you know, dead."

"Tim?"

There was the barest hesitation. "He's with me."

"What does Alfred—"

"Nothing. Alfred wants us to do nothing. You know Alfred. Go to bed, he says, everything will be fine in the morning. I'm sorry, but I think things are supremely Not Fine." 

"Right." Clark reached for his jeans. "Give me twenty minutes."

* * *

The scene, when he arrived, was exactly as Dick had described it. 

"Good Christ," Clark said, clicking the French doors behind him. The stone paving was tesserated with glass, and the reek of alcohol was overpowering, as though the stone was magnifying it. Bruce stood calmly in the midst of the destruction, sighting along the black metal crossbow like he was hunting lions on the savanna. His pants were rolled up, his feet bare. There were flecks of blood on them from all the glass. It was like watching the last days of the Emperor Tiberius, alone and sunk in desperate mania on Capri, in one of his midnight orgies of madness and violence. Except the emperor, in this case, was calmly reaching for a water bottle. No one had ever accused Bruce of an underdeveloped sense of drama.

"Dick worries too much," was all Bruce said.

"Yeah." Clark's tennis shoes crunched on the carpet of glass. "I can't imagine why he was concerned."

Bruce took aim at what appeared to be a Glenfiddich. The shot was true, and the bottle exploded. A flying shard struck Clark's face, and would have sliced him up pretty good if he had been anyone else. Titus stretched underneath the wall, extending a huge pink tongue to lick at the stone. Bruce grunted. "Too high," he said.

"Well, it got the job done." 

"I need more lessons from Ollie. It's different from shooting wire, the trajectory's all wrong."

"You're too hard on yourself."

That got him a grim laugh. "No danger of that, I think."

"Mind if I try?"

"Hardly seems sporting. What chance would they have?" 

Clark hefted the crossbow. Heavier than he had thought it would be, but a satisfying feel in the hands. He took aim at a bottle of Cointreau. The bolt caught it high in the neck with a crystalline sound, and the spray pattern was spectacular. Titus rolled onto his back, open-mouthed. 

"Well done." 

"You're right, it does shoot high."

"You know what we could do, when we run out of bottles. I'm having a bit of a problem with bat infestation in the south caves, the flocks need some thinning. We could take care of the problem the old-fashioned way. I think I've got another crossbow in the cave, if you feel like making a competition of it."

"Both of us aiming crossbows into the dark, at 4 a.m., while swarmed by angry bats. Dick will call the police, Gotham General's psychiatric unit, and the ASPCA."

Bruce smiled. "But it would be worth it to see his face."

Clark couldn't bite back the laugh. "You're on. So, may I ask a question?"

"Fire away. At that Woodford Reserve, too, while you're at it, I think it's trying to escape."

"Got it. So my question is, I take it this little. . ." He squinted along the sight, and fired. "Sporting activity, for want of a better term, means that you are indeed quitting?"

"This sporting activity has a purpose, it isn't all pique. I needed to get rid of the stuff, and it's no one else's responsibility to take care of doing that. This just seemed like the most efficient way."

"Did it now. You terrified the shit out of your kids."

"My boys don't scare so easily." He took the crossbow back and lined up another row of bottles from the box beside him. He placed them so their relative symmetry was exact, cocking his head at them until he had them just so. "Neither do you, for that matter."

"True. You seem to have cemented your relationship with Titus."

"The dog's a lush. Six thousand dollars for an alcoholic dog."

"You paid six thousand dollars for that?"

"Worth it at the time."

"And the answer to my question," Clark said softly.

"Is yes. Of course it's yes. I told you that earlier this evening, you just didn't believe me. And no, not just because you asked it. I've known for some time I needed to be avoiding alcohol. It's what my doctor's been telling me." He lined up a shot, missed, swore. 

"Your doctor. I'm. . . stunned that you listen to Leslie."

"Not Leslie. I take meds Leslie doesn't know anything about. Meds prescribed by someone your mother would probably describe as a special doctor."

"Your urologist?"

The next bolt took the largest bottle out right in the center. It glugged down the stone wall and dripped onto Titus's exposed belly. The dog would need the mother of all baths. "He can take a dip in the pool," Bruce said, responding to his thoughts. "If you tell me you're surprised that I have bipolar disorder, you're a worse liar than I thought."

Clark considered. "Who else knows?" 

Bruce was loading the bow and sighting again, but aiming into the trees beyond the terrace this time. "That I take the meds, and why? Alfred and my doctor. And now you."

"I am. . . surprised, if that's the word."

"You're a writer, you always know the word. Liar again."

"I'm surprised," Clark said, riding over him, "not at your diagnosis, but that you got treatment." Bruce's shaft hit the large magnolia with a scattering of leaves. It was late summer, and the leaves were crisp and dry, almost as loud as the glass when they fell. The side of the tree shuddered. "Holy cow, I think you hit a branch."

An enormous creak, and then part of the tree began to shift, as a heavy bough crashed through the lower ones to burst with explosive force on the ground below. "You're not bad at this, you know."

"Alfred is going to kill me," he said calmly. "And I didn't, actually. Get treatment, that is. That was Alfred. I was nineteen. I didn't leave Princeton because I wanted to leave Princeton, I left Princeton because I was institutionalized, for the better part of a year. I came home on a break, fall of my sophomore year, and opened my veins in an upstairs bathroom. Not mine, though. I chose the one that would be easiest to clean."

Clark shut his eyes because if he didn't, if he didn't. The scene played out in his head: the tortured, angry young man, whose chest was cracked with despair, whose hair was longer and scruffier, whose eyes were dead. He shut his eyes because he had seen it, seen the scar: for fifteen years he had seen the long white line up Bruce's left arm and not known it for what it was. Not known it because even when he had first met Bruce, he had already been laced with scars, some small, some large, some from his training, some from combat. He had had no reason to assume that particular one was any different. Only a very determined hand could have cut that long and deep. 

"It would have worked," Bruce said. "It was Alfred's day off, it should have worked. But he came back to the house because he forgot something, and then he was worried when he didn't see me around."

"Alfred found you," he said dully.

"That's what he does," Bruce said. Another shaft hit the magnolia, just grazing a few of the upper leaves this time. Clearly the bottles were boring him. "Funny," he reflected. "The dichotomies of my life. Manic or depressive, gay or straight, Batman or Bruce Wayne. Any way you slice it I'm a bi something or other. Two parts, never a whole. I would imagine you feel the same way, the human and Kryptonian parts of you."

"Yes."

"We're not dissimilar."

"Did you ever think we were?"

"Line up the last few bottles there, let's get this done."

"Hey." Clark pulled a bottle out of the box. "My dad drinks Dickel."

"Figures. I don't know why we have that swill, Alfred must have been using it for mixers."

"You are such an asshole."

"I don't remember seeing my father drink, though I'm sure he did. Maybe he didn't. There was certainly alcoholism in the family, and maybe he was aware of that."

"Your grandfather?"

"Possibly. Definitely my uncle Philip."

Clark watched the last few bottles explode. Bruce's aim was truer now, and bolt after bolt found its mark with very little reload time between. It was like a fireworks grand finale. A light clicked on, in the wing opposite the terrace. He wasn't sure if it was Damian's room, or Alfred's. Bruce would remember his uncle Philip. There was something about Bruce having lived with them, for a little while after his parents had died, but he couldn't remember how long, or if he had that part confused. 

"Your uncle was a drinker?"

Bruce was folding the crossbow back, removing the gauntlets. He was looking around at the wreckage of his terrace as though noticing it for the first time. "Hm," he said. "I might not have thought this through. Cleaning up might be a bit of a challenge. Has that dog passed out?"

"Probably." Over the tops of the trees, the first bit of dawn was graying the sky. There was enough light to see bits of glass in improbable places—winking from the lower branches of the magnolia, a few shards stuck in the rain gutters, a glistening in Bruce's hair. Clark laughed. "Your hair. Come here."

He ran a hand through Bruce's hair. Bits of glass fell onto the flagstones, his shoulders. He laughed some more. "Shower carefully, would be my advice." And then he realized he was still running his hand through Bruce's hair. Bruce's eyes were on him, inscrutable. "It's. . . all in your hair."

Clark's hand was caressing the side of Bruce's head now. Bruce tilted his head into Clark's hand. Not enough air raid sirens in the world, not enough alarm bells. "Just one," Bruce said hoarsely. "I won't ask for more. But just once."

Clark dropped his hand. "No," he said. 

Bruce closed his eyes briefly. "What I deserve," he murmured.

"Fuck you if you think we're a 'just once.' I kiss you, Bruce Wayne, I don't ever stop kissing you. You want a 'just once,' there are plenty of other places to go."

Bruce made a noise low in his throat that—he didn't even know. A moan, a hungry sound. Christ, was that what he would sound like coming, was that the noise. Clark moved his mouth next to Bruce's jaw, and didn't even know he'd done it. "Tell me," he breathed. "Tell me you understand when I say—"

Bruce's mouth seized his, wet and hard and so hungry. The terrace slipped, tilted to its side. Bruce was his exact height, he was kissing someone his same height, whose body notched against his exactly, and everything was different, everything the same. "God," Clark panted. "God God God."

Bruce's hand was on the back of his neck now, Bruce didn't want to let go either. Just mouths and hands and nothing else. From the corner of his eye he saw the light flick off in the upstairs bedroom. "Come inside," Bruce whispered.

"Where? The cave? We can—"

"I'll never make it down to the cave." Bruce's voice was a rasp. He pressed against Clark, and Bruce was hard, hard for him, he could _feel_ Bruce's cock hardening for him. "God, I need—" There was only strangled sound from Bruce's throat.

Clark dug his fingers into Bruce's ass. He pushed into Bruce's groin, and they were grinding, grinding standing up. "Right here," Bruce murmured. "Right here, I don't even care, fuck me right here—"

"Okay, no," said Clark, because somebody had to figure this out. "Hang on." He pressed Bruce to him even more tightly, and used super speed to get them inside. Only a few seconds, and he kept it nice and slow, or what seemed nice and slow to him, because he was mindful of the nausea it could induce. 

"Genius," said Bruce, and they were kissing again, in some room, he wasn't even sure where he had landed them. The library, maybe? Impossible to think while Bruce's tongue was in his mouth. Bruce's fingers were digging into his back, and he could feel it, really feel it, Bruce was using his full strength, strength that would have bruised or even cracked human ribs. He was so goddamn strong.

"God, you, I can't—" Clark picked him up and pushed him flat on a nearby desk. His fingers fumbled at Bruce's pants. 

"Oh fuck. . ." Bruce's voice was unstrung. He pulled Bruce's pants lower on his hips the best he could, tugged at boxers until that thick cock was free. It was wet at the tip and getting wetter. He took a moment just to look. He'd seen Bruce naked a million times, but never erect. He envied every woman who'd ever taken a ride on that magnificent thing. He wanted to watch Bruce fuck, wanted to see some woman riding him, wanted to see that cock slick with juices. Bruce's arms were trembling.

He didn't ask, just lowered his mouth and sucked. Bruce's guttural growl shivered him down to his balls. He'd never felt anyone tremble like this. Was he trying not to come? "Oh God, Oh God," Bruce was whispering above him. Clark plunged down and deep-throated him, because he could, because he had next to no gag reflex, because he could take the full length of that huge cock all the way back, and Bruce cried out at it. Not even words, just a cry. Bruce's fingers were curled around the edge of the desk, gripping it fiercely.

Clark swallowed, worked his throat. Bruce curled his legs onto Clark's back, braced himself on Clark's shoulders, rode Clark's mouth. "Oh. . . God, help, fuck," he was saying, just words, and the next three thrusts were short and sharp and there was come sliding down the back of his throat. Bruce's moan was low and long. Clark swallowed all of it. 

He climbed up on Bruce while Bruce was still shaking, and unzipped himself. For a terrifying second he was afraid he wouldn't have time, because his own orgasm was so close. Bruce pulled him down, limbs still jerky. Clark humped him, rode the friction. 

"I'm gonna—"

"God, yes."

Clark turned his face to the side and convulsed. He fucked Bruce's skin, his hot warm belly. He was almost, almost there, not quite—

A hand worked between them, wrapped around his cock and jacked him. His orgasm blinded him, wet his eyelids, liquefied his spine. There was the first wave, and then as it was subsiding the second one hit, and somehow Bruce knew just what to do, how to keep his hand firm and the motion steady, not too much but not slacking off either, and when the third wave hit, when he knew he was still splattering Bruce's chest he turned his head into Bruce's neck and just whimpered. After that only an oozing blackness and a warm dark, and arms around him. 

"Is that all the time?" Bruce was whispering into his ear. "Like that?" Clark nodded, and Bruce groaned, that same low-in-his throat moaning sound. "God, I want to come like that."

Clark licked his lips and tried for words. His face was full of Bruce's neck, Bruce's smell. A little bit of glass on his lips. "Not. . . all the time. That was. . . more. . intense. God, kiss me again."

Bruce gripped his face and kissed him, lazy tongue and tender touch. "You're loud," said Clark with a smile into the kiss. 

Bruce's face was grave. "I'm not, is the thing. Not usually."

"Need me to move?"

"No."

He pulled Bruce a little closer and shifted them, and it only now struck him that Bruce was letting him do that, letting himself be lifted and moved and carried, and his chest was squeezed with an aching tenderness. 

"I can get us upstairs," he said. "Get us cleaned up."

"This was a mistake."

"Oh no." Clark sat up. Papers and things from the desk floated to the floor. "No you fucking don't. You are not fucking going to do this to us, not now, not again."

Bruce was shaking his head. "No, not—hell," he groaned. He rolled over, kicked at Clark. "Get out of here."

"What the—"

"Get. Out." Bruce's teeth were gritted, his eyes wild. His eyes. . . dilated. Heartbeat racing. He was staggering up from the desk, zipping himself with fumbling fingers, pulling his clothes back to rights. He gripped the desk. Clark thought of his fingers gripping that desk not four minutes ago. The light was gray in the long windows now, enough to see the pallor of Bruce's skin. 

"Go home," Bruce was saying. Clark could hear how hard he was working to keep his voice steady. "We can talk later today. Please."

"Alcohol withdrawal," Clark said calmly. "That's what's happening. It's been about seven hours since your last drink."

"I'm not an idiot," Bruce snarled. "I know what's happening. Get the fuck out of my house." He was trembling all over, and belatedly it occurred to Clark his earlier trembling might not have been all arousal. "Get out, can't you ever fucking _listen_ , what is it with you—you inhuman, dumb-as-dirt, lying—son of a motherfucking _bitch_ , can't you get out of my house when I—" His knees gave way, but he was still clinging to the desk. Clark's arms came around him. "Can't you leave," Bruce panted.

"No. I get to be here for this too. Bruce, listen. Do you have any valium in the house, any benzodiazepines at all?"

"Fucking Corinne," Bruce managed. The shaking was getting worse. "No. I take—lithium, not benzos, I—fuck, call Dinah. She'll know what to—" In one motion, Clark had lifted him into his arms and wrapped him in one of the soft throws draped over a sofa. 

"Get the fuck away from me," Bruce croaked, and Clark held him tighter as he headed for the door. "Sure thing, babe," he said.

* * *

Dick watched Tim flip to the next page of his book, his concentration uninterrupted. He envied him; his own ADHD rarely allowed him to sit still for more than three minutes at a stretch, and the idea of sitting for hours leafing through a book was beyond his physical abilities. Information had to come in short, intense bursts, or not at all.

"How's it looking out there?" Tim didn't glance up from his book.

"Pretty quiet. They've gone inside." 

"Any chance that dog has a crossbow bolt through its abdomen?"

"Titus appears to have survived."

"Win some, lose some." Tim tossed aside the book with a yawn. "Did Clark finally get the deadly weapon out of his hands?"

"He did." Dick continued staring at the terrace. It had not been meant for him to see, what he had seen. But it had shocked him—not for the fact of it, but because it was so clearly a first time, the kiss of two people who had not touched each other before. It had been part of his baseline assumption for years that Bruce and Clark occasionally fucked around, when they had nothing and no one else to do. He couldn't imagine they could kiss like that if they were old lovers. He had felt that kiss, in the center of his body, all the way up here. So much hunger it had been hard to look at, and whatever else it was, it sure as hell hadn't looked like fucking around. 

It was pretty obvious why Clark had disappeared them so fast; they were no doubt coming their brains out right now, somewhere in the house or maybe the cave. That hadn't been the kiss of two people who had any intention of stopping themselves. Disturbing, how arousing it had been. It wasn't like he had been unaware of Bruce's beauty, or Clark's for that matter. But Bruce had been raw sex out there, and yeah, watching it, watching them eat each other's mouths like that, his own body had responded. So yeah, disturbing. 

"You okay?" Tim's look was too shrewd by half. 

"Yeah." Dick still had the curtain pushed aside, and he let it fall now. Tim was next to him before he was aware Tim had moved. Everyone in this house moved like that, like psychotic jungle cats, though he was just as bad, he knew. But Tim was especially bad. He was going to get a bell for his neck. 

"Tell me what you saw."

"It's not our business." 

Tim's eyes, more hooded even than usual, flicked up and down him, missing nothing. Certainly not the half-erection in Dick's jeans. One eyebrow twitched upward, just barely. Tim opened his mouth to reply when his head whipped around to the muffled noise coming from down the hall. "Shit," he breathed.

He flew out the room. Dick was right behind him. But Tim was quicker; Tim was through Damian's door and crawling onto the bed with him.

"Hey hey hey," he said, over the strangled yells, his hands immobilizing the flailing arms. One arm caught him across the face with an audible smack that made Dick wince, but Tim didn't back off. "Hey hey. It's okay, Damian wake up, it's okay, I'm here."

The cries ended abruptly, and Dick saw the sprawled panicked limbs retract, pull inward with shame. "Drake—" he whimpered. 

"Shh shh, just a nightmare, it's over, it wasn't real. It's okay," and Tim's voice—gentler than Dick had ever heard it—was saying nonsense soothing words, his whole body wrapped around his brother's. No easy task: at fourteen Damian was almost the largest of them, his arms and legs as gangly and everywhere as Titus's. He was going to have all Bruce's size and then some, and it wouldn't take much of a smack from that uncontrolled forearm to shatter Tim's more delicate cheekbone. But he curled into Tim like he was eight years old, and Dick caught the shudder of suppressed sobs. 

Tim tucked the dark unruly head beneath his chin. "Go back to sleep," he murmured. 

"I'm sorry," Damian said.

"Stop it, you don't have anything to be sorry for. Just go to sleep, all right? I'll be right here."

They had thought Damian's nightmares were over, but he was back in a regular cycle of them. Some nights were worse than this one, Dick knew, and some were better. He knew Tim had been looking at apartments just a few months ago, had even considered one or two in Bludhaven, and then he had just dropped it, not mentioned it again. At the time Dick had assumed Bruce had asked him to stay, but now he realized it hadn't been Bruce that had kept Tim here at the Manor. Impossible to believe where the two of them had been four years ago, with Damian attempting to assassinate him every time his back was turned, Damian's hatred and jealousy a palpable miasma over the whole house. And now it was only Tim who could reach him, when he was like this, Tim he turned to for reassurance.

Tim was quietly stroking his hair. Of course he was good at this. They were all good at this. Everyone in this house had had nightmares, and every one of them had woken to hoarse screams and strong arms holding them tight, soothing them, comforting them just like Tim was doing for Damian. Bruce. He hoped to fucking God Clark was holding Bruce right now, holding him like he would never let go, as tight as Bruce had held each of them.

He waited in the doorway for Tim to slowly disentangle himself. Some nights he didn't, when it had been especially bad; on those nights he would stay. Tim pulled the door quietly shut. The smack across his cheekbone was coloring up already.

"Jesus," Dick said quietly. "He got you good." 

"I'll tell him you clipped me while we were training, he won't remember." 

Dick tilted his face up, examining him in the hall's dim light. "Let me get you some ice for it. If I beat the hell out of you, it's the least I can do."

"It's fine, Dick." Tim's voice was amused at him.

"You're a good big brother."

"I learned from the best."

He realized his hands were still touching Tim's face. "Dick," Tim said gravely. "It's okay to do what we both want here."

With a groan he brushed his lips against Tim's. They were kissing in silence, with the barest of touches, standing in the hall. He was going to hell. There was not a level of hell deep enough for him. Every dark fantasy he had ever pushed down had sprung to sinful life in this hallway, and he would walk right down to the police station after this and turn himself in, but it would have been worth it for just this, for Tim's quiet lips on his, for the feel of Tim's skin, Tim's breath, that tiny noise Tim was making—oh wait, that was him—fuck, he was going to prison, he should be executed—

"Dick." Tim had pulled back just a millimeter. "I know what's happening in your head right now. Stop it. I'm twenty years old. And I'm your _adoptive_ brother. What we're doing is not wrong."

"It is," moaned Dick. "It is, I don't care, kiss me again."

Hell tasted so damn sweet.

* * *

He didn't even know what time it was when he finally collapsed on the cot in the cave. He'd had about two hours sleep last night, and Bruce of course had had none. But it wasn't just the lack of sleep that exhausted him. Seeing Bruce like that, being unable to help him—it had been a nightmare that felt like it had lasted days, weeks. 

He had gotten a hand free enough to text Alfred, who had come down to the cave in his bathrobe, moving faster than Clark had yet seen him. He had Bruce on the medbay bed by then, but something was wrong. The trembling had changed somehow, become more convulsive, and Bruce's eyes—

"He's seizing," Alfred had said briskly, and in three quick motions he had a syringe in Bruce's arm. "Hold him, mind his head. Watch his mouth, he could bite through his lips."

He had kept Bruce as still as possible, tried to guard his head and mouth, tried to listen to what Alfred was saying. And then Bruce's muscles had gone slack, and his head had raised up.

"Get the hell off me, Kent," he had growled, but Clark was still holding his arms as Alfred ran a line into his forearm. "I said, get the hell _off_ —"

That was when he had started to fight them. He had ripped out the first line while Alfred's back was turned and Clark's grip momentarily relaxed. That was also the point when Clark had noticed Dick and Tim in the shadows, having appeared from somewhere, working smoothly and efficiently with Alfred. Bruce's shouts were hoarse. 

"Get your goddamn hands _off_ me—Kent, what the hell gives you the right—" His struggle was desperate and fierce, Clark's arms implacable. "One motherfucking blowjob— _worst_ blowjob of my life, I got what I wanted from you now get the fuck out of my house—get your hands off me you fucking cheap lay, you whore, fuck you—" The second seizure was worse than the first, and when his legs went rigid he kicked the medical monitor and the IV stand over. The cave rang with metallic bangs and clatters. Alfred moved unperturbed in the midst of the chaos, preparing the second syringe. Bruce didn't go slack until the third one, and Clark collapsed on top of him. It wasn't that he didn't have the strength to hold Bruce, it was that the man was a hydra, and slid out of his grip like a python. 

He lay on the cot now and listened to Bruce's even breathing from his bedroom not ten paces away. He was resting, and there was the barest possibility his sleep was not drug-induced at this point, but natural. Dick and Tim had gone back upstairs. Once, he had met Dick's eyes over Bruce's seizing form. He was sleepless and there were gray circles halfway down his face and he looked. . . oddly guilty, as though maybe he thought this was all his fault. 

Alfred was puttering over in the medbay, putting things to rights. There was a pair of gauntlets laid across one of the monitors, and he picked them up, brushed them off. He glanced over at Clark. "Are you awake, Mr. Kent?"

Clark swung his legs over the cot. "Sure. I don't think sleep is going to happen for me anyway. What can I—"

The gauntlet slapped him across the face hard enough to smart. He froze at the shock of it. "What the—"

"Was this your idea?" Alfred's voice was taut and level. 

"I don't—"

"Getting him to quit in one night, cold turkey. That was your idea, wasn't it?"

Clark flushed. "I had no idea that his withdrawal would be this bad. He hadn't—"

"No you didn't. Do you know why you didn't? Because you don't know the first thing about his medical history, and you had no idea the effect that rapid and complete withdrawal of an addictive substance would do to his body, or the danger—the literal, physical danger—you placed him in. My God, it's everything I can do not to strike you again."

Clark dropped his eyes. "I'm sorry," he said. "I didn't know at the time. I know now. He told me, early this morning. If I had known—"

"Do you think I was unaware of the magnitude of the problem? Do you think I somehow did not know, or did not care? But the only way for him to quit, the only safe way, would have been gradually and under a doctor's supervision, but you, Mr. Kent, in your vast store of medical knowledge, decided you knew what was best for him."

"You're right. I'm sorry. Please, Alfred." He spread his hands. "I didn't know then what I know now. I'm sorry I didn't come to you first."

Alfred made a snorting noise and walked back to the medbay, tossing the gauntlets aside and picking up a disinfecting rag. "No one ever does. You're not any different from the rest of the world." 

"I am. I do know the truth now. I know what you've done for Bruce."

That brought Alfred's head sharply up. "You know nothing of the sort. You know one-forty-seventh of the story and presume you know the ending. You know nothing."

He was silent at the justice of that. He listened to Alfred clatter around, and then he rose, went to help. They worked quietly for a few minutes. "I was wrong," he said. "I apologize. Please."

"Four years," Alfred said curtly.

"Four years?"

"The length of time they kept him from me."

He didn't know what to say to that. "I don't understand."

The rag was tossed into the sink with a smack. "That's how long he lived with his aunt and uncle in Boston. That's how long they wouldn't let me see him, or speak to him. They tossed my letters in the trash, let him think I had gone back to England. Four years."

"I. . . can't imagine."

"No, Mr. Kent, you cannot. You cannot imagine it because you have never cared for anyone like that, you have never had the responsibility for a young and vulnerable life entirely in your hands."

"I know something about the responsibility for other people's lives," he observed. 

"True. My remark was unjust. My point is simply this. Come to me first. Not as an afterthought, not after you've already spoken to Master Richard, or Master Timothy. They love him, yes, but I know him. We must trust each other, Mr. Kent."

"Clark," he said. "Upstairs, you can Mr. Kent me all you like. Down here, I'm Clark."

Alfred's eyes were unreadable, as unreadable as this whole family's. Only one blood tie among them and yet they were alike as peas in pods. Must be something in the water, some microbe of inscrutable mystery that wafted up from the caves. "I'm well aware of your name, sir," he said. He toweled off his hands and headed up the stairs. Clark sat heavily and monitored Bruce's steady heartbeat, wondering if there was going to be any end to his fuck-ups today.


	2. Chapter 2

"Dear God," Clark panted, and Bruce said "Mm," from somewhere below. From his abdomen, where Bruce's head was lying, his eyes closed. They were sheened with sweat, and the room was still spinning a bit. The breeze from the open doors ruffled Bruce's hair, just the edges. 

"I mean seriously," Clark said. "Holy fucking wow." Bruce chuckled, and Clark reached a hand down to him. Bruce met it with his, and laced their hands together. 

The sunlight out the windows was too bright to look at, and the reflection off the sand made it even brighter. It was easier just to shut his eyes and let the light and the heat and the post-orgasmic glow carry him on the breeze. "We need to get back," Bruce said.

"You have a gift for mood-killing. Can't we just. . . enjoy the moment."

"Clark. The moment is over. Orgasm has been achieved."

Clark slapped at his head. "You are. . . you're really going to have dial back the sentiment there, it's a little too much realness for me."

Bruce's chuckle shook the bed this time. Clark used his free arm to haul him up and on top of him. After seven days of this, Bruce no longer protested post-coital cuddling. Clark had broken his will. It was one of his prouder achievements. Bruce had staged a minor rebellion just last night, trying to swing his legs over the bed and escape, but Clark had just said, "Nope," and plucked him back, effortlessly. 

"What if I had needed to piss?" Bruce had grumbled.

"You don't, I can see your bladder from here."

"Oh, for—" Bruce had scrambled off him. "For God's sake stop that, stop looking at my internal organs while we are in bed together, of all the disgusting—"

"I was kidding, I was kidding," Clark said, over his laugh. "Come on, baby, I didn't mean it, your bladder is beautiful, your spleen makes me hot, baby, sugar come back—" Bruce had kicked his head and Clark had been helpless with laughter. He had let Bruce escape, because he was feeling generous. But every other time, no: cuddling was mandatory, not optional.

"I don't want to think about going back," Clark sighed.

"No more do I."

"Alfred," he said dreamily.

"Well, that's awkward."

"Idiot." Clark slapped at his head again. "I meant, you said that because of Alfred. It's a Britishism, is all. American English would say, neither do I. Or me either, if you're being really colloquial. 'No more do I' is pure British. It just. . . I don't know, makes me smile, when I hear the little quirks of your speech that come from him."

Bruce was turning his head from its abdominal pillow to look at Clark. It was the tenderest, rawest look he'd ever seen from Bruce—everything in his eyes, nothing held back. It constricted his throat to see it. Bruce was looking at him like he had made some declaration of love, like he had said the most wildly poetic thing imaginable, instead of some humdrum linguistic observation. And when Clark did try to say how he felt, or talk about his emotions, Bruce gave him a flat stare like he was thinking about his next dental appointment. There was never any telling what was going on in Bruce's head, or how he would hear something. 

"There are just two rules," Clark had said, their first morning on the island. "No booze, and no wanking." 

"An Amish beach vacation, what could be better. And obviously I'm not drinking, that's the whole point behind drying out on a deserted island. But if you think I'm not jacking off for a week, you're delusional."

"Ah, you're missing my point. Any time either of us need sex, well, that's what we're here for. It's not like there's anything else to do—no TV, no internet, cell service for half an hour a day through the Watchtower's satellite. We can at least give it a try."

Bruce's mouth had tilted downward. "Clark. You don't know much about my sex drive if you think that is workable." 

"Is that a fact." Clark had moved closer, right up against him. Not touching yet. This thing between them was still so new that proximity alone could set them off. He caught the flare of Bruce's iris. "So tell me, how many times a day do you usually jack off?"

"It depends. I would say three times a day is about average. Sometimes less, sometimes more."

Clark's eyebrows rose. "Three times a day."

"You asked."

"Jesus," Clark said, around a suddenly dry throat. Because now he could picture it, was the thing. Picture Bruce kicking down his sheets in the early morning, taking himself in hand with determined stroke, rumbling a quiet groan of pure pleasure. Bruce in the showers of the cave, beating himself steadily. Bruce in the suit. . . He curled an arm around Bruce's waist. "I'll try to keep up," he whispered. "Use me when you need me. I'm yours. Whatever your body wants."

Bruce's eyes had darkened. He was watching Clark's lips. "I'll keep it in mind." 

He didn't really know what he had been expecting the sex to be like. They had only had that one time together, two days ago in the library, and they had both been so blitzed with hunger that it had been more like collision than sex—and Bruce had been heading into withdrawal already, so who knew if he even really remembered it well. But yes, he had been surprised. Part of him had thought sex with Bruce would be some next level tantric acrobatics that might include but not be limited to rappelling off furniture and swinging from ceiling joists, so he had been mildly astonished—and yes, more than a little turned on—to discover that Bruce preferred dark, and quiet, and furtive. Bruce's touches were almost hesitant, and they wound Clark to such a fever pitch that he was shaking with lust. Bruce's eyes asked permission before he did anything, and Clark learned to do the same. 

"Can you come like this?" Bruce had whispered, the first time they were completely naked together. Bruce was on top of him, and they were sliding their cocks together, rubbing, and Clark had his fingers dug into Bruce's ass. 

"God, yes," he had moaned, and Bruce had nodded into his neck. Bruce had ridden him until his own cock was leaking so much it slicked their bellies, and his orgasm had caught him fast and soon. "I'm gonna come," he had panted, arms tight around Bruce. "Shit—fuck—" his body had bucked under Bruce, who was coming with him in fast humping thrusts. He had wanted to lick Bruce clean afterward, lick every part of him. 

He woke Bruce the next morning with a blowjob. He had felt Bruce's morning wood poking him in the back, and he had rolled over and scooted down, sealing his mouth on his shaft and deep-throating him. And just like in the library, that was the express train to Bruce losing his freaking mind, as it turned out. That was Bruce scrabbling for a handhold on the headboard, that was Bruce yelling hoarse obscenities, that was Bruce curling his legs around Clark and resting them on his back, which was his new favorite position. "So that's how to get you to make noise," Clark had said, when he was done swallowing, his voice hoarse from the massive battering his throat had just taken. 

In answer he got pushed flat on his back, and Bruce's mouth was sliding down him. "I won't be able to do what you did," Bruce said softly. "You're quite a bit too big for that, and my throat's only human."

"Just—anything, please just touch me." 

Bruce took him as far back as he could and let his hands do the rest. Bruce clearly knew what he was doing, and just as clearly had this whole elaborate scenario in mind about bringing Clark to the edge then backing off, then bringing him to the edge again, but there was no way it was happening, not after having watched Bruce come like that. Having felt him come like that. Clark's orgasm stung his eyelids and shuddered his body like sheet lightning. Too late he saw the bruises on Bruce's shoulder, where he had been gripping him. 

"Shit," he breathed.

"It's fine, I didn't even feel it. Relax."

But the marks were unavoidable. They were on the back of Bruce's shoulders, where he couldn't see them, but where Clark did, every time Bruce turned around. And he saw them, like a visual reproach to his lack of control, every single time Bruce turned around because Bruce had apparently decided against wearing a shirt, on the island. As well as pants. Ever. Bruce strode around the place stark naked, like some un-self-conscious demigod, like the name of the island was Happy Fun Naked Time. It was a great name. So Clark developed a casual attitude toward clothes too, and once he saw the appreciative, assessing looks it got him, he enjoyed it even more. 

"So is this something you do a lot, around the house?" 

Bruce was eating a contemplative pear and looking out at the view. The villa had deep awnings and wide porches, which kept back the glare somewhat, but the reflection off the sand was still wincingly bright at mid-day.

"Eat pears?"

"Walk around like, you know." He made a vague gesture that raised Bruce's eyebrow. "Naked."

"Are you complaining?"

"No! No, believe me. I was just wondering if you do. Because you seem pretty comfortable, is all, and I was curious."

The pear was aimed at a nearby bin. "I guess I do. Never thought about it."

"Like. . . around the house? All the time?"

"Don't be ridiculous. But in my own rooms, I suppose so. I don't know if you've noticed, but lack of invulnerable skin means I tend to wear armor on a pretty regular basis. Naked is a relief."

"So you'll just walk around your rooms, by yourself, balls to the breeze?" Clark was stretched on the bed, not a stitch on himself, watching Bruce. "What about when Alfred walks in?"

"What about it?"

"So you're telling me you just walk around naked, even if Alfred is there. Like if Alfred came up with a tea tray, and you were naked, you wouldn't bother to put anything on."

Bruce looked at him incredulously. "This would be the same Alfred who changed my nappies? I think his eyes can bear the sight."

"That's just. . . boggling to me. It seems so. . . depersonalizing, in a way. I mean, we're talking about a human being, not a piece of furniture."

Bruce was just staring at him. He looked like he was having trouble formulating words. "Are you suggesting that I somehow do not—" He broke off. "Don't speak to me for fifteen minutes," he said grimly, and was out the glass doors to the beach. Clark watched him walk to the water, wade through the gentle surf, and dive. His strokes were long and even. 

After fifteen minutes Clark went out to join him. The lee side of the island, where the villa was situated, had a small lagoon where they did most of their swimming. Bruce was pretty far out, right at the encircling arms of the lagoon. Clark considered swimming the distance but decided against it. When Bruce surfaced next he gave an exasperated snort to find Clark, lotus-style, hovering about half an inch from the water's surface, right by his head.

"For heaven's sake." 

"You're out pretty far."

Bruce just dove back under. Clark floated to his next point of surfacing, to Bruce's evident irritation. "You should know there's a white shark, about eighteen meters off the lagoon. Pretty good size, too. Maybe you should not tempt fate."

Bruce slicked his hair back. "Might be interesting, to watch you take out a shark."

"I would, but I'd hate to have to do it. I'd probably let her have some of your toes, maybe a foot, to make up for it. Come on, not kidding, she's heading this way."

"I bought the island, she can get her own damn lagoon."

"Take it up with your agent. You should have been more specific about buying in the non-shark neighborhoods of the South Pacific." He hauled Bruce up more or less onto his lap and got them quickly to shore. Bruce collapsed on the sand, and Clark stretched out beside him. The sand was warm and soft as talc.

"I'm sorry," Clark said. "For saying that. I wasn't thinking. Of all the stupid things to say. No one knows better than me your respect for Alfred."

Endless miles of teal-dark ocean winked in the distance. The island's white sand soaked up so much sun the sand was almost uncomfortably warm, and a late afternoon sea breeze ruffled the tops of the palms and stirred the darker undergrowth of the adjacent grove. In every direction, those were the only sounds: the whoosh and roil of the ocean's thrum like a heartbeat, and the scudding of wind. 

A grunt was his only response. "It's interesting, about the nudity," Clark mused. "You're so comfortable with it, and I'm so. . . not."

"Boy Scout," murmured Bruce. His eyes were closed. 

"Not just that. It's just more a part of your world than mine. Being naked in front of servants, walking around the lacrosse locker room, steam baths at the spa — being that comfortable with your body. Modesty is more the order of the day in the blue collar world I grew up in. It's a kind of class marker, really, a side effect of privilege."

Bruce cracked an eye. "I see we're in the conversation where we're pretending you're not the most privileged person on the face of the planet?"

"Not socio-economically, I'm not. And don't even pretend we're somehow from the same class when you know we're not."

"I know nothing of the sort. The first and most important part of socio-economics is 'socio,' and you and I inhabit the same social universe. We're in the same class, trust me."

"Right, I was forgetting how we move in the same social world. I can't believe it slipped my mind how last week I was partying with Brad and Angelina in Mauritius. Or, let's see, fucking Charlize Theron and Scarlett Johansson and who was it, the one in the _Enquirer_ whose name I can't even spell, Aishwarya something or other?"

Both Bruce's eyes were open now. "Something tells me we're not discussing socio-economics anymore."

Clark was silent, aware how dangerous was the territory he was treading on. He had heard his own tone of voice, too, how ugly and angry it was. He stared in silence at the waves breaking beyond the lagoon, and the ripples that lapped the sand at their feet. Best to leave it, retreat quickly. They could go inside and have more sex, and Bruce could tease him about the naked thing. 

"I ate my heart," Bruce said slowly. "The years you were with Lois. The woman you loved, and don't pretend now that it wasn't love, because I saw. I know you, and I saw. I had to watch the two of you, for years. So yes, I've had lots of sex, of all varieties. Do you think it made me feel better?"

He swallowed the justice of that in silence. Beyond the lagoon, the white shark was swimming on; he could track her movements through the turquoise murk, sleek and graceful and utterly untroubled by them. "Well," he said at last. "It wasn't exactly the worst time of your life, either."

Bruce's laugh was long and low, and Clark laughed too. Bruce kept on laughing, softly to himself. "Come inside," Clark said. "You're going to get burned."

"Don't I know it," Bruce said.

* * *

"Why didn't you want to go to the Fortress?"

Bruce was flipping through one of the books Alfred had packed — the short stories of Kazuo Ishiguro — and absently spooning yogurt. He gave a noncommittal shrug. "Is it because it's my space?" Clark persisted. "Because I can see that, if that's the case. It could be hard to. . . create your own sense of self in a place like that, especially when you're working at recovering what that self is in the first place, more or less rebuilding what—"

"For God's sake." He tossed the Ishiguro aside. "I hate the cold, is why I didn't want to go. And I'm not recovering a sense of self, I'm drying out. If you thought it was drinking that made me a bastard, you're in for a disappointment."

"You hate the cold? Really?"

"That's so hard to believe? The Batsuit is insulated for a reason. I'm not a fan of freezing my nuts off in your ice palace."

"Yeah," Clark said, "it'd be a shame if anything happened to those." He stretched his leg over and toyed at Bruce's crotch with his foot. Bruce arched a brow.

"I'm sure in your head that was an extremely artful segue." 

"Oh, I can do artful." Clark slid to his knees. 

"You have my attention."

"Do I now."

He began with Bruce's balls, and he didn't leave them. He had noticed before the way Bruce would arch and groan anytime Clark's fingers strayed to his balls; he just hadn't been able to give them the concentration they deserved, being so hungry to move on to the main course. Now, he took his time.

Bruce's hand stroked his head as he licked and sucked and laved. He took each in his mouth by turns, suckled, nudged. Bruce's breathing was erratic, his spine lifting off the chair. He hadn't so much as touched his cock, and Bruce was leaking already, fully hard. He wondered how long Bruce could stand it, just this worship of his balls and nothing else, before he begged for more. Bruce's breathing was audible now, a small sound on each exhale; Bruce's fingers were firmer on his head. He was getting close—he was halfway there, and Clark hadn't done anything other than lick at his balls. He wondered what that kind of sensitivity felt like.

He lifted his head long enough to take in the sight in front of him: Bruce's cock swollen and purpled with arousal, that magnificent chest rising and falling, those ice-chip eyes bled almost completely black, his iris was so wide. _You're the most beautiful thing I've ever seen_ , he wanted to say, but didn't. There was a list of things they didn't say to each other, and it didn't seem to be growing shorter.

"Stay here," he said instead, and walked up the few steps to their bed. He pulled open the nightstand drawer, wondering just how stocked Alfred had been able to make this place, on such short notice. Apparently pretty stocked. Fistfuls of condoms, vials of lube—all sorts of stuff they hadn't used. Bruce had said he had never visited this island before, never made use of it at all. He wondered if that was true. Only people who didn't know Bruce thought he never lied. 

Kneeling back in front of Bruce, he touched his cock for the first time, using a bit of the oil to slick his shaft. Bruce's eyes slid closed at it, which was why he didn't see, and wasn't prepared, when Clark straddled him in one deft, graceful move and slid down on Bruce's cock, down to his cock-root. 

It wouldn't have been accurate to say Bruce groaned.

It was more a strangled noiseless exhale, and a convulsive clutch of his arms around Clark, pulling him close. 

They rested like that, unmoving. Clark had done it because he knew he could, because he knew he had the muscle control and strength to do it. The lube had been for Bruce's benefit, not his own. 

Slowly, Clark contracted his inner muscles, massaged the length of Bruce's cock. Did it because he knew he could. Bruce's arms held him tighter. Bruce's face was buried in his shoulder. Still they hadn't moved.

"You can move," Clark whispered. 

"I can't." Bruce's jaw had never been clenched harder.

"Why not?"

"I'll come."

"Just from this?"

"Are you kidding me."

They stayed like that, Clark listening to the rasp of Bruce's breath, wrapped in Bruce's arms. "Just give me a minute," Bruce panted, "to get control." Clark made a slow adjustment of his internal muscles, taking Bruce even deeper, massaging his shaft further. The noise in Bruce's throat wasn't human. 

"Not here," Clark said, into the top of Bruce's hair. "Not with me you don't." Bruce's fingers around him were pressing so hard they would have left bruises, on other skin. "Not with me," he said again, and shifted his muscles once more, just the smallest bit. 

Bruce shuddered, from his spine up. His face burrowed deeper in Clark's shoulder. His body stiffened. Clark felt every jet and spurt of his body's wrack, every convulsion. His insides were hot and dripping with it. 

"Tell me," he breathed, when he judged Bruce was done. "Tell me that was as good as it looked."

Bruce gave a small moan. He hadn't lifted his head yet. "Sorry," he whispered.

"Not with me," Clark said again, his voice as soft. Bruce lifted them both up—Jesus, sometimes he forgot how strong the man was, the strongest person he'd ever known—and made it to the bed, still inside Clark. He set Clark gently down.

"I can do better," he said. His cock had softened, but even soft he was large enough to give Clark a pleasant sense of pressure. 

"It's good," he said. "Just—" He brought Bruce's hand to his cock.

"I like that you're not cut," Bruce said. "You feel so good in my hand."

It was about the frankest sex talk they'd had. Clark was getting painfully hard from it. Bruce's voice, and the memory of Bruce's body shuddering beneath him, the feel of Bruce's come still inside him—it was too much. He arched, panted. "I need—need to come."

Bruce's hand worked him. Bruce's hips pushed gently in and gently out, a rocking motion really. He needed pressure, more pressure. "Hang on," Bruce said, and slid out. Clark bit his lip in frustration, stifling a groan. "Hang on, it's okay," Bruce said, and there was a hand—some fingers—he didn't even know what, or much care—sliding inside him, and then the pressure was a sharp spike of intensity, and his groan this time was loud and hungry.

"Yes?"

"God—God oh God don't stop—"

"Let go for me," Bruce husked.

Clark's heels were lifting him off the bed, but Bruce was pinning him, one hand inside him, the other working his cock. His orgasm unboned him. There was come in Bruce's hair. He thought of the glass on the terrace, how much of it had been in Bruce's hair. 

_Love you so goddamn much_ , he thought, or maybe he hadn't. Maybe that part had been out loud. Bruce's mouth was bending to his, kissing him.

"You just met your prostate," Bruce's voice said, warm in his ear. "You would love anything." But he kissed him again, and there was only amusement in his voice. 

He woke later that night to stillness, and dark. There was a storm moving in; he could hear the distant susurration of wave, the change in its tone. The curtains open to the beach blew and snapped in the wind. Bruce slept beside him, taking up most of the bed, as usual. They had forgotten dinner—forgotten any sort of regular eating schedule at all, really, and he could see, looking at Bruce, that that had been a mistake. The kitchen here had been well-stocked before they arrived, but Bruce wasn't eating much of it. Minus the calories from alcohol, his body was dropping weight fast. Bruce would not be pleased, if and when he looked in a mirror. 

Tomorrow he would think about cooking something. He could probably whip something up to tempt Bruce. Or maybe they should head back home—let Alfred get some meat back on him with his fancy cooking. The thought of heading home, of leaving here, of stepping outside whatever magical suspended time he and Bruce had stepped into here, filled him with a vague nausea. 

He watched Bruce sleep. Stretched heedless on the bed, dark head thrown back, limbs asplay—he looked like some Greek god after a debauch, like Hades, lord of shadows. He smiled to think what Bruce would say of the analogy. _Hair color is not a character inference, Kent_ , he would complain. _You write like a Victorian penny dreadful._

But here they lay, Hades and his. . . he racked his brain. He couldn't recall any male lovers Hades ever had. Not like Zeus and his Ganymede. In all the stories, there was only Persephone. He remembered puzzling over that story when he was younger. Had she loved him? Had she come to love him, after a while, or had she hated him her life long? Had he hated her too, by the end—locked in torment equal to hers, with a wife who could never love him, never leave him? It had seemed such a twisted confusing tale of fury and love and loss. When he had first heard the story, back when he was in elementary school, it had broken his heart to think of Persephone torn from her mother every winter, having to leave her mother's loving arms. He had been a tender-hearted boy, and he had loved his mother. But when he got older, he wondered if Persephone's tears, at the parting, were not a bit for show, as time went on. He wondered if she did not hastily dry them and run to her dark lord's embrace, and if they fell on each other hungrily, eager after their long separation. . .

Bruce's eyes were awake, and watching him. "Don't do that thing, where you watch me sleep. I'm going to go sleep on the sofa, if you do that."

"Sorry," Clark whispered, and ghosted a hand down Bruce's back, a long caress that ended at his ass-cheek, cupped it. "Go back to sleep, beautiful." 

"Mm."

Clark kept on stroking, gently but firmly, and after a while Bruce began to arch into it. Clark bent to kiss his ass, to lick a line up his lower back. His hands kneaded the thick muscles. "I was wondering," he said.

Bruce lifted his head and squinted at him. The eyes were looking not at his face, but rather lower. "You're maybe not the best size for this activity," he said, and Clark snorted.

"You don't look down in the shower much, do you? Come on, it'll be—I know what I'm doing."

The vertiginous arch of Bruce's eyebrow said what he thought about that, but he pillowed his head on his arms and lay flat anyway, which was as much permission as Clark figured he was going to get. He reached over to the drawer, and gathered his supplies—supply, really, because they hadn't talked about it after this afternoon, but condoms were kind of a joke when one partner was invulnerable to human diseases anyway. And what a twist of arousal that had been, to realize Bruce had almost certainly never done that without a condom before. Clark kissed and licked a path down his spine. He didn't need to be told that this was not something Bruce did with any regularity—maybe at all, ever. He would make it so good for him, he would bring Bruce to inarticulate peaks of pleasure. Everything he wanted to say, he would say with his body and his mouth and his hands.

His tongue laved Bruce's hole, his fingers eased and stretched. It wasn't like he didn't know how it was done. He had watched it being done, plenty of times, on the sort of sites for which Google had invented the incognito window. Not that Lois would have minded, or would have done anything but scoot over in bed and join him. She was an equal opportunity sort. He was the one who would have minded, because he alone knew exactly what he was thinking about when he watched those things, when he gripped his cock in the middle of the night and tried to shut out the dark flood of images, the secret shameful wants—shameful not because of what he wanted, but who he wanted. 

Bruce was nothing but still and yielding as his fingers rubbed and massaged. Clark poured more oil, and pressed just the head of his cock inside. Still Bruce did not move. He pushed all the way in—a quicker slide than he had calculated, but then he had used a lot of lube, and he was new to the practical physics of this. The moment of being in Bruce, actually in his body—he shut his eyes at the pleasure of it. "You," he panted, not sure what else to say.

Bruce was still. Bruce had never been stiller. He was rigid, actually.

Slowly, Clark pulled out, an inch at a time. "Bruce," he said. 

There was no answer. He put a hand on Bruce's back, and there was the smallest flinch—just a quiver of epidermis, really. He might have imagined it. "Bruce, please look at me," he whispered.

In answer, Bruce rose and wrapped the sheets around himself. All the sheets. He wrapped himself like the cape of the Batsuit, and twice as impenetrable. He walked out the open glass doors to the porch beyond, letting the curtains flap behind him. 

"Shit," Clark breathed, and flopped back onto the bed. 

For a while he watched the fan whir its lazy circle above his head. 

He re-played the last half an hour, everything he had done and said. He couldn't find the wrong in it. Which meant he had to look elsewhere, because maybe it wasn't there. If only Alfred were here. He needed to pick up the non-working cell and call Alfred back in Gotham, get him to translate Brucian for him.

Alfred. A memory poked at him. _Four years. The length of time they kept him from me_. Why would he be remembering that, now of all times? Because, whispered his brain, because. Listen. Look. _Transcendent cruelty_. Bruce standing in the bay of the garage that night, looking as walled-off and alone as he had ever seen him. 

_Sometimes the victims of transcendent cruelty are capable of transcendent cruelty themselves._

_Four years._

_Four years they kept him from me._

_My parents' death was not the worst thing that ever happened to me._

_Your uncle Philip was a drinker?_

_Transcendent cruelty._

_Not the worst thing._

_Transcendent._

_Tossed my letters in the trash._

_Four years._

_Not the worst thing._

"Shit," he said again, but this time it was to the heels of his hands pressed into his eyes. 

He found a pair of soft pants from somewhere—probably Bruce's, to judge by how wonderful the fabric felt on his skin. He did love Bruce's clothes. "I need to refresh my wardrobe," Bruce had announced a few years ago. They had been eating take-out in the cave, and Bruce had frowned, like the thought had just occurred to him. "It's looking tired, and I've got this trip to Singapore next week, and Johannesburg the week after that. Alfred, will you see to it?"

"Of course, sir. What shall I do with your current wardrobe?"

Bruce had shrugged. "What do I care?"

"I only ask because Master Richard is not your height, sir, nor is Master Timothy. Master Damian might be in time, but no doubt he will wish to make his own purchases."

"No doubt," Clark had chuckled, and Bruce had cocked an eyebrow of shared amusement.

"I don't really care, Alfred," Bruce had said. "Give them to the Goodwill. Gotham will have the best-dressed homeless on the east coast. On second thought." He had looked up with another frown. "Don't do that. I don't feel like seeing my Burberry trench on some wino crackhead every time I turn the corner downtown."

"I thought you were more the Armani type," Clark observed.

"One likes to be unpredictable. And nobody beats the cut of Burberry's gussets."

Clark had laughed so hard he had almost swallowed his mu shu pork. "I bet you I could make a cool million, just selling the recording of Batman saying 'gussets.'" 

"Shut up, Clark. For that, you have to take the clothes to the Metropolis Goodwill for me. Alfred can get everything boxed up when my new things arrive."

Clark had balled up his napkin with a sigh. "Pleased to be of service, Master Bruce."

He had done it, though—come by to pick up the boxes when Alfred had called to tell him they were ready. Alfred was profusely thankful, but he had loaded them in his car and was driving away before he thought to ask Alfred why he hadn't just taken the boxes to Metropolis his own damn self; Alfred was across the bay once a week anyway. And then he had parked at the curb in front of the store and stared at the boxes. "Oh," he had said aloud. "Well, aren't you slow, Kent." 

He looked at the big box of shirts on the front seat. Goddamn Bruce for thinking he needed his charity. He didn't need his stupid clothes; his own were fine. A few shirts. He would take just one or two, for work. 

In the end, of course, he had taken pretty much all of it. He had never known that shirts could feel that way, like liquid sex poured onto your shoulders. Bruce had kept most of the ties, but there were one or two thrown in there—Lanvin, Hermes, and other names he didn't even recognize. After all, Bruce rarely saw him in his work clothes. It wouldn't be awkward. They had been giving them away anyway.

 _Thanks, you conniving bastard_ , he had texted Bruce the next day. There had been no response, but he hadn't expected one. 

Bruce's silences said more than his words.

In silence Clark folded himself on the floor at Bruce's feet. Bruce was cocooned in the white sheets, staring out at the water. Clark rested his forehead on Bruce's knee.

"So here's something," Bruce said. "When you thought about it—and I know you did, probably as much as I did—I'll bet you didn't imagine the sex would be quite this bad."

Clark lifted his head in astonishment. "I don't know what to say to that," he said. "The truth is, this week has been the best sex of my life. Laugh if you like."

"I'm not laughing."

"And now you tell me about Philip," Clark said.

"I know," Bruce said.

* * *

Tim lay in the gray just before dawn, staring at the metal slats criss-crossing the ceiling of Dick's apartment. The place had industrial chic, Dick liked to say. People pay good money for this look, he would say. Had said just last night. _And what about the dirty underwear on the floor, is that extra?_ Tim had asked.

And now his own underwear was around here somewhere.

Dick rolled over next to him and murmured something. Lost in some dream or other. Tim sat up quietly and began to reach for his things. "Don't go," said Dick softly behind him. Not so asleep after all. 

"I have to," he said. "Damian."

"Alfred's there."

"Alfred expects me back."

He heard the noise of Dick stretching, like a cat. He didn't turn around. "Bruce will be home soon," Dick said. "Day after tomorrow, I think Alfred said."

Tim said nothing, because Bruce's arrival had nothing to do with what they were talking about. Dick liked to appear to persuade him to stay, but at the slightest pushback, the smallest indication that Tim might yield after all and stay, Dick quickly changed the subject, shifted it slightly. "Anyway," Tim said. "I have to go."

"Tim." Tim shut his eyes, because _here we go_. 

"Last night. . . I don't know what to say." 

"You never do." He found his underwear, and his shoes. 

"You know what I mean. Tim. Please. Please just look at me. You know we have to stop. You know we can't. We have to stop."

Tim pulled on his shirt, and was grateful for the reason not to look at him. "The trouble with you, Dick," he said, "is that your moral epiphanies always occur about five seconds after orgasm. But hey. This time it was five hours, so that's progress, huh?"

"Tim—"

He was out the door before he had to listen to any more of it. Down in the filthy wet of the garage, he sat on his motorcycle in silence. Then he cranked it, because maybe Dick would be listening for the sound of the muffler, five floors up.

* * *

The flight home was uneventful. Clark watched the cloud patterns out the window of the private jet and tried to ignore the beginnings of an insistent headache. It was ridiculous, that Superman got headaches. He knew why he did. It was his eyes: their vision was too acute. Too much light flooded the pupil, and if he wasn't careful, if he didn't remember to shield them a bit, a dull ache would set in. And here he had been over a week without his glasses, with their slight imperceptible tint that gave him just that little bit of protection. The glasses weren't just a handy disguise. 

He glanced across the cabin to where Bruce sat—well, brooded. There wasn't anyone else in the plane other than the crew up in the bulkhead, probably all trying to figure out how they had displeased Mr. Wayne since he wasn't accepting any cocktails. Clark sighed and walked over to Bruce's side of the cabin, easing into one of the butter-soft leather seats facing him. Bruce did not react, was apparently unaware of his presence.

"You haven't said anything for six hours," Clark began. "The in-flight magazines are beginning to pall."

Bruce's glance shifted his direction, then away. Clark sighed more loudly. "It would be nice to know what you're thinking. Not every minute, but you know, maybe once every seven or eight hours or so. A grunt, so I know you're alive."

"I'm thinking," Bruce said, and cleared his throat. "I'm thinking I need a drink."

Clark glanced at the well-stocked liquor cabinet behind Bruce. Here was one cache he hadn't had a chance to smash with a crossbow. "Yes," he said carefully. "The hard part starts now, I know."

"What you know of it is zero."

"That's not. . . entirely fair." The headache was moving beyond dull to piercing.

"But accurate. Don't look all solicitous, I'm not in danger of breaking open one of those bottles of scotch and downing it, so you can stop being so irritatingly anxious."

Clark pursed his lips. It wasn't like he hadn't known Bruce's personality would take a turn for the worse, with every mile closer to descent at Gotham International. "I've also been thinking," Bruce continued, "that what I've done is replace one addiction with another."

"How so?"

"The sex. I haven't thought much about drinking this past week because of all the sex. Stop looking nervously behind you, the crew can't hear us."

"I wasn't—"

"And what I think is, I should make life easier on myself for now by taking you back to the Manor with me."

Clark raised his eyebrows. The conversation was not taking the turn he had expected. "Okay," he said. "But I'm not a goldfish you won at the state fair. And Perry gave me the week, but I doubt he's going to give me much more than—"

"Perry will give you what I tell him to give you. And if it's a salary difficulty, I can more than meet that." 

Clark studied his hands. Yes, definitely more than a headache now. "I think," he said, as carefully as before, "that now we are going to do that thing where we don't talk for fifteen minutes."

"Oh for God's sake. Don't misconstrue everything I say. You need the money and I don't. On the other hand, I need what you can provide. It's a sensible arrangement."

He waited until he trusted himself to speak. It was several minutes. Bruce's eyes were keen on him. "Well," Clark said, and stopped. "Did that take all of the six hours to think up, or have you just been biding your time?" And he got up and went back to his place on the opposite side of the cabin.

He closed his eyes and let the headache take him. Curious how few words it had taken Bruce to slice him up the middle. It wasn't even the words, clumsy as they had been, so much as his clear desire to hurt; the curious probing look he had given him, like part of him had been hungry to see Clark's hurt. Wanted it.

For a minute or so he contemplated opening a hatch and just flying home on his own the rest of the way, but there was no real way to get outside without significantly altering cabin pressure, and while he might not have been all that upset at the moment to imagine Bruce sucked into the void of space, there was the crew to consider. So he dozed instead, and when he woke, the sun had shifted position to starboard, and the light on their wings was golden and mellow. They would be landing soon; the slight difference in air pressure told him they had started their descent. The discreet _fasten seatbelts_ light was on, but it was a polite suggestion rather than an order. 

He would go back to Metropolis, and Bruce would go back to Gotham, and this week would never have happened. Because that of course had been the point of what Bruce had said, since Bruce would never say _look, I told you from the start I just wanted this once, and this week was our once_. There was nothing in Clark that was surprised. They would go about their lives, and they would work together as usual, probably even hang out together as usual, or when necessary, and there would be nothing on Bruce's face. Nothing on his own, either. But his skin would ache, for the rest of his life. It would fit too close on his bones, like it had shrunk, a desiccated thing.

Bruce rose lightly, and Clark startled at the knock of the forehead against his knee. Bruce was curled in front of him, face buried in Clark's knee. "Run," Bruce said, into his leg. "Run, as far and as fast as you can." 

"Too late," Clark said. 

"Damn it," Bruce said, and he sounded genuinely angry. Clark hauled him up, onto him, wrapped his arms around him. "I did try," he murmured in Clark's neck.

"I know," Clark said.

"Still want a fucking drink."

"I know that too." Clark ran his hands up that broad back, feeling the muscles underneath the shirt. "I forgot what you look like clothed. It's a good look for you."

"Is it now." Bruce was kissing him now, down his jaw and into his throat. Clark moved a hand to his front and felt the outline of him there, through the fabric—rubbed what he felt there, the naked length his fingers, mouth, body had memorized. Bruce's grunt of approval coiled low in his own balls, and he began to push up, rubbing against Bruce's pants, grinding a bit. Bruce was pushing back into him. Making out while clothed—this was a whole other level of sexy, and it occurred to him they had skipped over quite a lot, in the maelstrom of this past week. Going slow certainly had its benefits.

Of course, if Bruce kept moving like that, things weren't going to go slow at all. "Wait—should we—"

"Not my fault if you didn't pack an extra pair of pants in your carry-on," Bruce said, but rasped Clark's jaw with a stubbled kiss and pulled a groan from him. 

The _fasten seatbelts_ sign pinged once or twice more, but neither of them paid any attention, and none of the crew disturbed them.


	3. Chapter 3

Clark shut the door on a gust of autumn wind that blew in several leaves behind him and earned him a glare from Alfred. "The broom is hanging in the cupboard," he said, with a pointed look at the offending leaves on the neat granite tiles.

"On it," Clark sighed. "Just thought you should know, the boys are going to start eating piles of mulch, or possibly each other, if those sandwiches don't make it out there soon."

Alfred made a noise somewhere between a snort and a harrumph, and continued his measured pace of slicing and filling. A fire crackled in the enormous arch of fireplace, over in the far corner of the kitchen, and Clark rubbed his arms in front of it, relishing the rush of warmth after the brisk chill of the bright day. A glance out the wide windows showed him the distant arc of the football, Tim's leap, the sideplow of Damian's tackle that landed him on his back in a pile of leaves—and Dick's laughter carrying clear to the house. He smiled to watch them play like they were all of them ten years younger. It made him feel ten years younger, to be with them.

"Need a hand there?"

"Thank you, Master Clark, I believe I have things under control." 

He smiled at the _Master Clark_. At some point in the last few months he had slipped from being Mr. Kent, who was a visitor, to Master Clark, who was expected to sweep up after himself, and it warmed him better than the fire to hear it. He pulled a stool over to watch Alfred work on the sandwiches. 

"So I was doing some reading," he said. "Some historical reading, in the _Planet_ 's archives, about the Wayne family."

"Oh yes?" Alfred actually looked up from the chicken salad spread. "Well, I'm no authority, but there is plenty of information in the library here that isn't available in public archives, if you'd like me to help you find something."

"Sure," Clark said. "But I was also interested in more recent history."

"Of what sort?"

"Well, I was just thinking. I mean, looking at historical patterns, that sort of thing. I see the same kind of thing in my own family. My grandmother, my mom's mom, had acute appendicitis when she was barely two. She almost died on the operating table, and the exact same thing had happened, at the same age, to her mother, and to one of her brothers. It's interesting how that can run in families."

"Ah." Alfred gave a slight smile. "I'm afraid in my own family the most dramatic curse is a tendency to fallen arches."

"Yeah. Well, it's a little worse than fallen arches, with the Waynes. I noticed how lots of Waynes died before their 50th birthday."

"Yes, I'll grant you the story of Master Bruce's family can be a grim read. Hand me that cutting board, if you will."

"But it's funny," Clark said. He watched Alfred's deft hand slice off the crusts with a practiced whack. "Most of those early deaths come after long illness, or violence in one form or another. They made sense, in a way. His grandfather's battle with pancreatic cancer, his great-grandfather's lung disease, and then of course his father's murder." He tugged at a bit of lettuce and bit it, chewing it thoughtfully. Alfred's whole concentration was on the sandwiches.

"But there was one death that didn't make sense," he said quietly. Alfred smoothed the chicken salad over the last slices of bread. "Bruce's uncle Philip. He just dropped dead of a heart attack for no reason, apparently, before he was even 45."

"It was a very sad thing," Alfred said. 

"Just six years after his brother," Clark mused. 

"Indeed." Alfred scooped the remaining crusts into the wastebin and set to rinsing the cutting board. Clark watched him in silence. He arranged the sandwiches in perfect order on the platter, and began with the garnish. 

"There was quite a bit of press coverage about it, at the time. I mean, I guess there would be, being a Wayne. But it happened here in this house, didn't it? I thought I remembered reading that. He and his wife were planning on moving from Boston to Gotham, moving into Wayne Manor. Which I guess he could have done, since he was Bruce's legal guardian at the time, and I'm assuming he was in control of Bruce's assets, which would have included the Manor."

"That is correct," Alfred said gravely, to a radish. 

"It just made me wonder," Clark continued. "You probably thought it was strange, too. You were there that night, weren't you? The night of the dinner party, when he died, I mean. It must have been awful.

"Horrid," Alfred agreed.

"Were you anywhere nearby?"

"No, as it happens. I was assisting the kitchen staff for most of the night, since they were shorthanded. Mrs. Wayne junior was a very kind-hearted woman, but chronically given to understaffing, and not familiar with the demands of an establishment like the Manor. I didn't see a moment of the party at all, to be honest."

"So you were just in the kitchen, preparing food the whole night."

"I'm afraid so."

"Alfred," Clark said. "That's exactly the answer you don't want to give, if anyone asks you these questions in earnest."

Alfred's level stare met his. "I have no idea what you're—"

"Enough with the bullshit. I'm an investigative reporter, not an idiot. A man in the peak of health, even if he was a drinker, keels over dead of a heart attack without any prior warning signs? You trained as a medic. I'm betting you kept a store of drugs and medication in this house long before you set up shop in the cave. I'm betting you know just how much cyanide sprinkled on a salad takes care of a problem forever. Alfred. Someone asks these questions, for God's sake, the last place you put yourself is in the kitchen that night."

Alfred was silent. There was a chorus of whoops and shouts that gusted up the hill with the breeze. A distant laugh—Damian's maybe—and another voice, shouting at him. Alfred wiped his hands and stared meditatively out the window.

"Anyway," Clark continued. "Regardless of what I think of your solution, the truth is, I know enough about who Philip Wayne was to know he deserved what he got." 

"No, he did not," Alfred said. He was still looking out the window. "Once," he continued, and stopped. "Once, my gran heard me muttering at the telly, when I was just a boy. There had been these horrible murders, a string of them, and they'd caught the chap, and I remember looking at a picture of him on the screen and saying, I hope God gives him what's coming to him. And my grandmother looked up and said to me, she said, don't ever pray like that. Before you pray that God will give somebody what he deserves, you'd better fall to your knees and thank God he's never yet given you what you deserve." He set to folding the tea towel. "A very wise woman, was my gran. For a Catholic."

"Alfred. I wasn't—"

"You think you know," he said sharply. "You see a few facts, and you think you know the whole. You don't know a thing." 

Where once he would have objected, Clark swallowed the remark. "I know more than I did," he conceded. "But not the whole of it, no. Never the whole of it, probably."

"No more shall I, for that matter," Alfred said. "Do you know what I used to call him, when he was six or seven? Cocklebur. That's what I called him."

Alfred tugged a loaf of bread closer and began slicing for another set of sandwiches. "I called him cocklebur, because he would stick to you, just that close. Not that he was a timid little thing—never him. He just liked being near you. He liked touching you. I used to read to him, at nights, just things I had liked as a boy, books I found in the library here. Treasure Island, that sort of thing. He would burrow into bed with me and cuddle so close I couldn't shake him off. Such an affectionate little thing he was. Couldn't get enough of playing with you, snuggling next to you, tugging at you."

The knife moved in quick rocking motion across the crusts. "What did I know, I was a boy myself. Twenty years older than him, but just as sheltered. I'd done my medical training, and left it off, much to my dad's chagrin. Don't know why, just couldn't finish it. Thought I'd take a job in service for a while, just to pay the bills, get my feet under me while I tried to figure out what I wanted to do with myself. Trying to explain my life to myself as well as to my dad. And Mr. and Mrs. Wayne were such kind people. It was an easy place to be, an easy place to feel like you belonged. All I'd ever known was kindness, and gentle people, and courtesy. I was a child too. What did I know of evil?"

Clark said nothing. Alfred wiped his knife, but made no move to finish the sandwiches. He stood there with his hands on the counter, staring at the loaf as though displeased with it. "I didn't know what was happening," he said. "After the funeral. We were all still so dazed. Bruce especially. The night before he was to leave with his aunt and uncle, he held me so hard. Don't let them take me, he said. Don't let them—"

He turned his face away. "Little cocklebur," he said hoarsely.

"Alfred, it wasn't your fault that—"

"Don't say that," he said. There was a cold fury in his voice. "Don't you dare. If it wasn't my fault, whose fault was it? If that little boy wasn't my responsibility, whose was he? And I let them take him. For four years, I tried to see him, I wouldn't go back to England. And still I didn't know, didn't really suspect. And then one day I get a phone call from Mrs. Wayne up in Boston. They were coming down for the day, she said. To open up the Manor. Thinking about spending the summer here. Could I have the house ready, just for a few days. And when they came—" He took the knife and plunged it into the thick wood of the cutting board, where it stuck.

"I knew," he said dully. "When I saw him, I knew. Someone had done things to him. Shot up like a weed, but he was still my boy. But when I tried to touch him—" He shook his head. "When I tried to touch him, he flinched. My boy. Flinched away from me. Eyes like dead things. I knew then. I didn't know what they had done, didn't know that yet. But I could guess."

"What did you do," Clark said. 

"What could I do? I was one man, and he was a Wayne. He could have flicked me off the face of the planet with a finger. But I did it. I went to Boston after that and got an appointment with him. He probably thought it was something to do with the house, new flashing on the gutters or something. I stood right in that enormous office of his and did the only thing you can do when you've got no cards and nothing in the bank. I bluffed. I stood there and told him I knew everything he had done to his nephew, that Bruce had told me everything—which he hadn't, of course—and that I was going to go to a newspaper unless he let him go, let him come back to live at the Manor with me."

"And he did?"

"Fear can be a powerful motivator. Almost as great as shame. Even a breath of scandal like that would have been enough to destroy him. So I took the train to Boston by myself and rode it back here with Bruce."

"Just like that," Clark said.

"Just like that. He never told me what. . . what that man did to him. He didn't have to. It was written all over him, in his eyes, the way he moved. I tell you. . . I tell you I have never wanted any man's death so much as I wanted Philip Wayne's. A man like you probably can't understand it."

"You think so."

"I put that boy back together, piece by piece," Alfred said fiercely. "It took the better part of a year before he would smile again, even the smallest bit. We had tutors here at the Manor for a year, and then when I thought he was ready for it, he went to Groton. But he was home every week-end. But I thought, he's going to be all right. He's going to make it. What was done to him, it didn't touch the core of him. I thought we had escaped. And then I get the telephone call that says they're coming down, to open up the house for good, that they're going to be moving down here. I don't know why. Maybe the need for the boy got stronger than his caution. Maybe he had ideas for how to silence me. I don't know."

They heard the clump of feet on the terrace, and then Damian stuck his head in the door. More wind blew in, flattening the flames on the kitchen hearth. "Alfred," he whined. His legs gave as Titus pushed through behind him, bounding toward his water bowl, kicking up more leaves.

"Get that beast out of here," Alfred said.

"But he was thirsty, you can't mean for him to drink nothing but pool water. It's chlorinated. And the heater's on, it's too warm for him to drink. He likes it cold." He shoved the overgrown mop of black out of his eyes, and a few more leaves fell out. "Hullo Clark, coming out?"

"In a bit."

"Heaven forbid the crown prince drink warmish water. Go on, off with you now."

"Alfred, if you don't feed us soon, I can't answer for Grayson. He's the most disgustingly carnivorous creature I've ever known. I'm going to have to lock Titus in the poolhouse for safekeeping if you don't toss us something soon. Oh, sandwiches, excellent." And he cut in, grabbing one off the platter and scuttling away before Alfred could swat at his hand. Damian moved like quicksilver. He would be as strong and as graceful as Bruce one day; almost was already. 

"Oh, get on with you, you dirty thief," Alfred said. "And shut that door!"

Damian slammed the door with a laugh, the two of them racing out of range of Alfred's wrath together. Clark watched them lope back down the hill, six over-long legs, watched Damian launch himself at Tim, who was lolling in a pile of leaves. He had never known anyone to play with such manic energy as Bruce's boys; almost as though all the playfulness constrained by the deadly intent of their lives burst out, in furious raucous spurts. Bruce was the same, in his way. 

"You understand what I mean," Alfred said, his voice quiet. He was watching them too. "What I did, it wasn't about justice. It wasn't about anybody getting what he did or didn't deserve. It was about protection."

"Yes," said Clark. 

"I would do it again. There isn't the least part of me that's sorry."

"I know that."

"It was the easiest thing in the world," Alfred said. "No one thought anything of it, me being in the kitchen that night. Nothing more natural but that I should prepare Master Philip's plate myself. I was careful that no one but me should touch it."

Clark nodded in silence. He had known—had guessed what must have been the truth, by putting piece next to piece, over the last few months. But it was not the same as hearing it spoken, hearing it from Alfred's own lips. "It was strychnine, not cyanide," Alfred offered. "And it wasn't from my medical supplies. I had it on hand to try to take care of the bat infestation in the south part of the house. The caves were over-run. But as you say, I did know the dose. Not that easy, to know just how much a human requires for it to look like a heart attack and nothing worse."

Clark thought of the Borgias, of Renaissance princes plotting in their palaces. Maybe Fitzgerald was right, and the rich really were different. Here they were discussing poisoning over chicken salad sandwiches. Alfred was watching him now, his eyes sad. 

"I didn't think to get away with it," he said. "I never thought that. I don't think to now. I've got a folder under my bed upstairs, with everything in it — a confession, everything just like I told you, the amounts all written down, even the receipt from buying the strychnine. I've had it all prepared for years, all this time. It was just that nobody ever asked."

"Does Bruce know," Clark found voice to ask.

"Of course not. You think I'd still be in this house if he did? And quite right too. He would never countenance anything like that."

"No, he would not," Bruce said from the doorway. 

He stood there with his hands in his pockets, his face a perfect blank. Clark didn't know how long he had been standing there, but clearly it was long enough. He had thought there wasn't any color that could wash out of Alfred's pale face, but he had been wrong.

"Master Bruce—"

"Enough," Bruce said. "I've heard enough. Alfred, go get that folder."

In silence Alfred set aside the towel in his arms, and in silence he set out up the back stairs. Bruce turned to the fireplace. 

"Bruce," Clark tried. "You can't honestly—"

"This doesn't concern you," Bruce said, without turning around. 

Clark subsided into silence, knowing there was nothing he could say that could reach Bruce. If faced with the choice Alfred had made, what would he have done? What would anyone have done? He knew that he too would protect Bruce, and damn the cost. But Bruce didn't see in grays, didn't have the capacity to understand nuance of that sort. It was one of the curious ways his brain was broken, and maybe it had always been that way.

Alfred's step on the back stairs was heavy, his face ashen. Clark set his jaw in anger. He watched Alfred hand the folder to Bruce, watched Bruce impassively flip through it. 

"How dare you," Bruce said. His voice was a low thrum of anger. "How dare you. Did I ask you to do this?"

"You did not," Alfred said, and his eyes were steady. 

"I don't require your protection."

"Perhaps not. But it is yours nonetheless."

"You think I would have allowed this?"

"No. But then I didn't ask your permission, did I?"

Bruce's long exhale was almost a sigh. He tossed the folder onto the fire. The three of them watched its corners crinkle and crimson, its middle collapse. "Enough," Bruce said again. "I think that's enough lying for one day. For one lifetime. I don't require your protection, nor did I ask it. And if ever I'm called to give account, I will give it, with no word from you. Is that clear?" Alfred was silent. "I said, is that clear?"

"There's nothing wrong with my hearing, sir. Repetition is not an effective form of persuasion."

Bruce's eyes narrowed. "Then how about this. I pay for my own sins. I am accountable for my own actions. And if you ever—understand this, ever—lie for me again, I will turn you out of this house. Do you believe I am telling the truth?"

"Yes, sir."

"Now go take the sandwiches to those boys."

"Yes, sir." Deftly Alfred balanced both platters and got them out the door to the terrace. Bruce shut it behind him. The room was quiet, except for the flames that crackled as they consumed Alfred's carefully constructed lies. 

"Were you ever going to tell me?" Clark's chest felt tight, as though the fire was eating the oxygen in the room too.

"No." Bruce was facing him now, his feet planted wide. Defiant. 

"Because let me guess, it didn't concern me." 

"No. Because I wanted you to think well of me. It's a weakness, but I've accepted it. For some reason, it became important to me a long time ago that you think well of me. That you continue to think well of me. So no, I was never going to tell you that I was a murderer."

"You're not," Clark said. 

"Why, because I was fourteen? Because I had reason, or thought I did? I could have gone to the police. I could have said, from the time I was eight until the time I was twelve my uncle raped me almost nightly, and I could have put him away forever. I wasn't an idiot, I was old enough to know my options. Murder was what I chose."

"I don't care."

"You should. I'm a killer, and you shouldn't forget it. I don't. Yes, I went to Tibet and I learned to control my passions, to rule my anger instead of letting it rule me. I swore I would never let myself be mastered by my passion like that again, that I would never kill again. You thought my lines about killing were so bright and hard because I hadn't ever killed? That's a joke. Only a killer knows the cost of killing."

"You've paid it," Clark said. "Many times over." 

"Have I? Who gets to say?"

"I do," Clark said savagely. "And yes, it is my business. You are my business. That's something you should get used to. You care what I think about you? Then here it is, so listen good. I think you are the bravest, noblest, kindest person I have ever known. I think life has kicked you in the balls repeatedly and you have only stood up straighter. I think for every injustice handed you, you only cared about justice more, and wanted other people to have what you didn't get. I think you are possibly the smartest person on the face of the planet, and with infinite resources of mind, body, and power you turned all your energy to the bettering of the world. I think. . . Jesus, you don't even have time for everything I think. I think you should wake up beside me every single morning of every single day for the rest of your life. I think you should learn what it feels like to let someone love you the way you ought to be loved. I think your ass looks incredible in those pants."

Bruce looked meditative. "That is. . . a lot to think."

Clark glanced out the doors to the terrace. On the hill below, Damian and Titus were dancing around the tray of sandwiches, with at least three stuffed in each of their mouths. Alfred was attempting to shoo the dog away. His vision showed him more than he wanted to see, most of the time, but especially today. "I also think maybe you should know that Dick and Tim are in the poolhouse making out," he said with a frown.

"Yes, they're being very discreet, aren't they? That's been some time now."

"This is. . . a hell of a family."

"It is."

"I like it," Clark declared. "Come on, let's get a sandwich before Titus eats them all."

They walked down the hill together, the wind blowing eddies of leaves at their feet. Titus leaped into the pool with a tremendous splash that soaked the chaise longues. Clouds of dirt and leaves floated off him and muddied the crystal clear water. 

"Damn dog," said Bruce.

**Author's Note:**

> This work grapples with the very real and potentially disturbing issues of alcoholism and child sexual abuse. I don't warn for any of them, and [this](http://fabula-unica.tumblr.com/post/62869455827/opting-out-of-the-trigger-warning-culture) will explain why.


End file.
